How to Design Powerful Knowledge Sessions for Your Attendees

23-06-2018

Have you ever wondered about the main reason why attendees come to your events? From engaging in unique experiences to exploring the networking opportunities, there are probably a few different answers.

However, there’s one thing that can influence people’s decision to attend an event: the quality of the content. According to a 2017 study conducted by The Experience Institute, 92% of all generations indicate that education is important, whether that education is gleaned from the formal program or the exhibit floor.

In other words, the number one reason to attend events is for knowledge transfer. Before deciding whether or not to attend an event, people will usually check the program, specifically the topics that will be covered during the event.

They’ll also evaluate the caliber of the speakers you’ve invited and try to determine the learning value those speakers can provide.

Your guests care greatly about the quality of the event content. They are eager to learn as much as they can and find new insights or solutions to their professional doubts. Moreover, as the same report indicates, “91% of all generations possess the will or strong propensity to continue their personal or professional education as adult learners, with both Gen Y Millennials and Gen Xers the highest at 95%.”

If you haven’t paid too much attention to the education component of your events in the past, it’s time to change that. It’s your responsibility to thoroughly plan the content delivery dynamic and design powerful knowledge sessions for your guests. Here’s how you can do it:

Tip 1. Ask the experts and the attendees

As a planner, you are probably familiar with managing events across various sectors. However, it’s always tricky to design an attractive program, especially in an industry that you don’t know very well. That’s why you must rely on professional help. Usually, there are special committees that decide each knowledge session’s structure and topics. But if you have to plan an event without any help whatsoever, it’s important to reach out to experts (or the clients who approached you to plan the event) and learn as much as you can about the things that are worth sharing and discussing.

It’s also important to know your attendees and their interests. You could double your efforts and run a survey (before the event) to identify their content-related expectations.

Tip 2.Group the knowledge sessions around one leitmotif

It’s a mistake to write a blog post about everything under the sun. Similarly, it’s also erroneous to plan an event around multiple topics. You can always set up powerful knowledge sessions where the attendees can explore aspects of the subtopics in depth.

However, there must be a leitmotif (one main theme) that showcases your entire event’s narrative. If you’re planning a conference about bitcoin, for example, you can’t run a session about how to foster cats. But you can plan a knowledge dynamic about CryptoKitties (the world’s first game to be built on blockchain technology).

Tip 3. Find interesting speakers who will engage your attendees

This part is crucial. Apart from a powerful event program, your attendees will also be looking for valuable speakers who are thought leaders with something meaningful to say. Apart from that, these speakers should bring something new to the table and provide worthy insights that will help the attendees grow their knowledge and skills.

Tip 4. Alternate the knowledge sessions with other dynamics, such as fireside chats

If you tire your attendees with dense knowledge and repetitive dynamics, you run the risk of decreasing their learning abilities (and boring them to death). Plan a varied event with different session formats that will allow your guests to stay focused, absorb as much knowledge as they can, and experience different levels of engagement with the event content.

Tip 5.Help your attendees test their knowledge

A good way to potentiate the information transfer during the events is to quiz the attendees. To make it more fun, you can encourage some friendly competition among your guests by having them answer event content-related questions via a mobile app. To boost the engagement, you can incentivize those who get more points by offering them some goodies. This will help your guests brush up on the insights they received during the event and test their knowledge, highlighting the most important takeaways.

Wrap-up

The key elements that will determine if people attend your event are the quality of your speakers and the value of your content. Your entire event must be designed around the insights delivery. The substance of the knowledge sessions you run will dictate the success level you’ve reached in planning the event.

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